http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/technology/06hack.html



By JOHN MARKOFF

The New York Times

August 5, 2008



A criminal gang is using software tools normally reserved for computer 

network administrators to infect thousands of PCs in corporate and 

government networks with programs that steal passwords and other 

information, a security researcher has found.



The new form of attack indicates that little progress has been made in 

defusing the threat of botnets, networks of infected computers that 

criminals use to send spam, steal passwords and do other forms of 

damage, according to computer security investigators.



Several security experts say that although attacks against network 

administrators are not new, the systematic use of administrative 

software to spread malicious software has not been widely seen until 

now.



The gang was identified publicly in May by Joe Stewart, director of 

malware research at SecureWorks, a computer security firm in Atlanta. 

Mr. Stewart, who has determined that the gang is based in Russia, was 

able to locate a central program controlling as many as 100,000 infected 

computers across the Internet. The program was running at a commercial 

Internet hosting computer center in Wisconsin.



[...]





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Received on Wed Aug 06 2008 - 02:03:34 PDT